Full Charge Decline

How hot do you let the inside of your car get?

 

I ask because some of us have been talking about the dangers of high temperature exposure to the Traction Battery of any hybrid vehicle. F8L and I plan on seeing how high the battery temps get between using the A/C and not using it on hot days. Lithium Ion batteries like the ones in the PiP and Leaf could be more susceptible to high heat. Just about any Traction battery will hold less charge if it is very hot. I would suggest anything over 95 degrees F for the Traction Battery will have a definite negative impact on performance. I don’t own the PiP, but I assume the Traction Battery is still cooled with air from the cabin like the regular Prius. I don’t let my cabin stay hotter than 80 degrees F, for any length of time if I can avoid it. I don’t know if this is your problem of course, just asking.

 

this is the first i have heard of this. i suggest getting it back to the dealer and having them replace the traction battery. if they won't do it, do you have a lemon law?

 

Are you doing a lot of stop/go driving? On your normal route, do you have a section that is even slightly uphill? These will reduce your range. I have an area that is about 1 mile downhill on the way to work, and use almost no battery. On the way home it was using the charge very quickly when going uphill. And my available charge was decreasing daily when at a full charge. Now, I switch to HV mode about a mile before the uphill portion. At full charge this morning I was at 15.2 - I was as low as 10.2. It took 5 weeks to get that increase. The computer uses a very long average.

 

The EV range number displayed on your dash is just an ESTIMATE. Much like the "DTE" (distance to empty) displayed when you have a full tank.It can vary (wildly in some cases) but is dependent on your past driving (your last full charge, for example).

This topic comes up maybe once every 2 weeks or so. There are people here who see somewhere in the 9+ mile range and some who see 16+ EV miles estimated. But again, the key here is to understand that EV range is simply an ESTIMATE.

 

perhaps i misunderstood, is it your ev dispaly range that's going down or your actual ev driving range? this is a common point of confusion and difficult to articulate.

 

Yes. It's not easy, but you'd need to drive only in EV and record your mileage until the gas engine pops on. Then you'll need to do that in different situations - e.g. freeway, city, suburban, etc.

Only then will you know what the actual range is - and it will be different for different driving scenarios. That's why there's no real way to predict exactly what your range will be. As mentioned above, the number you see on the display is an estimate.

It would be nice to know exactly how the PHEV computer calculates an EV range estimate, but so far no one here has claimed to crack that code. So there's lots of ideas about how the computer might come up with the estimate.

 

Must be an LA thing, I wouldn't have a place to plug in, except at home. One of the reasons why I didn't buy the PiP. Good luck on crushing that MPG average!

 

That’s what through me off, I thought you meant your actual range was dropping. If it’s the computer estimate then that’s all that it probably is. My regular Gen III does the same thing with its estimated driving range on a full tank of gas. That has dropped some since I purchased the car, which makes sense as it gets more long term data to make its estimate.

 

Congrats enjoy!

 

Do you mean you wouldn't have a J1772 to plug in or you wouldn't even have a NEMA outlet to plug in to?

 

Wouldn't have either of them. No public outlets here in my area.

 

I was wondering the same thing as Heather Somaini when i got the PiP in late April, as soon afterwards my "electric" distance number dropped from 11.5 to like 9.5. After about 6 weeks it started to creep up. Then I got to thinking... stored electricity is unlike stored gasoline, where you have certain physical constants (one gallon fills x volume and weights y pounds/ounces). Then I understood that the stored electricity can be expended in so many different rate curves that the car computer "projects" a given electric range based on its observations of your preceding driving style and terrain. To test this theory I safely gentled my accelerator foot habits (accelerating on flats, coasting up hills, accelerating on downhills), and after several days my "electric range" crept back up into the 11s for the next day's driving.

I guess now that it would be very challenging to devise a meaningful yet simple indicator gage to indicate "remaining electrical miles". It would have to be a dynamic display, and then could it stay at-a-glance simple without becoming a dangerous distraction for the driver? Could it stay comprehensible? The only way I can conceptualize such a dynamic gage is as a constantly shifting display of two intersecting curves. So based on that thought process, I wager that the current display is a safely non-distracting, accurate enough "guesstimate" algorithmically derived from each driver's driving style over the preceding several days and accompanying road conditions.

I remember reading that US WWII tanks measured their fuel in pounds of weight and not in gallons, with the rationale that the remaining fuel weight was thought to be a better "you are about to run out of fuel now" measure than gallons because of the unpredictable variations in terrain the tanks were designed to drive over.

Thoughts?

 

I have been having this issue as well. Bought my PIP on 4/15 and got it with 13.9 and now have been hovering around 8.7 every morning with a full charge. I am in conversation with Toyota Corporate and they have yet to come up with a valid explanation. I am looking to have those contact me with the same issues as I feel this is going to be a bigger issue than just me. Please feel free to email me at: [email protected] and I will keep you posted along with the others having the same problem.

 

Hi Heather, try using Trip B to see how far you get on EV. My range is showing about 15 and I'm getting roughly that, sometimes way more. I live down in Long Beach, but drive up to LA and Pasadena. From Long Beach (elevation 20), I burn up the EV faster coming up than coming back down.

Also, fill your tires up to 42 PSI. It will help with your glides. Most of the roads in town are pretty beat up, so that will slow you down also. If you can keep your route on the smoother paved roads, that will help.

I know Pico, Olympic and Santa Monica are pretty bumpy .. especially in LA proper.

 

This is the most logical answer, personally I never worry about it. One test that you can do is: Zero trip meter, then run on EV, At destination or sooner, see how many miles you actually got in EV. Should you still have a couple of EV miles still showing in charge window, add those to the trip meter. EV is EV, it does not matter where the charge comes from.